FromSoftware’s latest new game is the bold co-op roguelike offshoot Elden Ring Nightreign, and it’s much different than the typical Soulsborne action RPG experience that fans of the studio’s titles have come to expect. While all the hallmarks of Soulsian combat is here — stamina-based combat, a strong emphasis on dodging, many combinations of magic and melee attacks — the way progression works is entirely different.
Instead of slowly and steadily upgrading your character while carefully making your way through various regions and levels, Nightreign is instead played at a far faster pace, with its structure driving players to quickly sprint from one spot on the map to the next, acquiring random loot and upgrades and slaying minibosses as they go. Simultaneously, they have to ensure they’re not caught outside of an encroaching circle that eventually corrals them into intense major boss fights at the end of each in-game “day.”
That speedy roguelike design takes a while to get used to, especially if you’ve been playing FromSoftware games for a long time and are used to how they’re typically structured. It certainly did for me, and in the process of learning how to play Nightreign, I made several big mistakes that you should avoid making yourself. Here’s what they are, and how fixing them ultimately made me a better player.
Splitting up from teammates
If there’s one thing you should take away from this article, it’s that more than anything else, it’s crucial to stick with your teammates throughout your run. This seems like an obvious tip since this is, y’know, a co-op game — but trust me. There will be times where the points of interest you want to go deal with are different than the ones your allies are pinging for whatever reason; I often felt the urge to split off from the others to go after camps that had a chance to reward me with weapons that dealt a specific damage type, for example.
I’m here to tell you that you shouldn’t do that, and should stay with your squad even if you disagree with the route they’re planning through Limveld. If you go down and there’s nobody nearby, that means nobody will be there to revive you, and you’ll die and lose both a level and all the runes (experience points) you were carrying.
The latter can be recovered by running near your death location, thankfully, but the former is a significant setback — especially in the late game when levels are expensive and you probably won’t be able to level as highly as you could have if you didn’t lose a level.
Even if you think there’s very little chance of you dying on your solo detour, it’s still a risk I don’t recommend taking. Besides, beefier minibosses like Bell-Bearing Hunters take quite a while to defeat on your own, and that’s time that would mostly likely be better spent defeating multiple other ones with your team.
Wasting time on trash mobs
It’s tempting to fight every enemy there is within hostile camps and structures, especially with Elden Ring combat being as fun as it is. Ultimately, though, this simply isn’t worth doing for most of the time spent in your Expeditions. Killing basic mobs is a great way to earn a few levels right away at the start of a run, but after that? You should be focusing almost entirely on the minibosses within points of interest.
Running past enemies instead of fighting them has always been a comically effective way to progress through FromSoftware’s Soulsborne action RPGs, and as it turns out, it’s also the best way to make the most of your time before the circle of Night closes in at the end of each of your two farming days. Past Level 5 or so, you should be skipping everything in camps and forts and sprinting right to their minibosses to kill them, get an upgrade or a new weapon, and then move on.
This sounds like a risky tactic, but it’s actually not at all most of the time since you’ll generally lose the aggro of most enemies quickly if you Surge Sprint past them. Kill mobs that do chase you down and interfere with your fight against a miniboss if you have to, but ignore them otherwise.
Not prioritizing flask upgrades
Aside from hunting down minibosses for upgrades and weapons or leveling up with all the runes you’ve collected, another important way to get stronger in Elden Ring Nightreign is upgrading your healing flask. Doing so will give you an extra use of it on top of the three that you get by default; you get one for beating the major boss at the end of Day 2, but you can actually get three more for a total of seven — one from each of the church structures located around Limveld.
These are marked on your map with yellow building icons (if they’re greyed out, you’ve already gotten the upgrade there), and the altar within them gives you an extra flask charge when interacted with. I didn’t prioritize chasing these down at first and instead focused more on boss kills, but having a deep reserve of healing flasks is incredibly valuable when fighting the Nightlord boss at the end of your runs. Definitely make sure you visit as many of these churches as you can.
Challenging field bosses on Day 1
While the start of Day 2 marks the locations of major “Great Enemy” bosses located between points of interest in the field, these bosses actually spawn in these locations at the start of Day 1 and can be stumbled across at any point in your Expedition. As tempting as it may be to fight them early for a huge amount of runes and a powerful upgrade, though, this is something I strongly recommend not doing.
These bosses are balanced around being Level 7-8 or higher on Day 2, and thus are extremely dangerous to fight when you’re far weaker than that on Day 1. Not only will you deal terrible damage and thus take forever to kill them, but their attacks are also likely to one-shot you since you’ll have very low stats. Remember where you ran into them and come back on Day 2 when you’re better prepared.
Ignoring clues from forts
At the top of enemy forts, just past the platforms at the top where you tend to encounter their minibosses, is a room that has a map on a desk you can interact with. Doing so will reveal the location of several unmarked points of interest nearby the fort, including locations where you can often find lots of consumable items and — even more importantly — the whereabouts of Teardrop Scarabs. I forgot these maps even existed for a long time, but have since made sure I activate them whenever I’m at a point of interest with one.
These skittish dung beetles are the only source of talismans — charms that give potent and unique buffs to many different aspects of your character — in Limveld, and while you can find them on your own by listening for the distinctive high-pitched jingling sound they make, being able to see exactly where they are on your map is a boon. You can have two at once, and by hunting down several of the beetles, you’ll give yourself a good chance of getting two that work with the build you’re cooking up.
Do be aware, however, that these Teardrop Scarabs will despawn themselves by vanishing into the air if you alert them, but don’t hit and kill them for multiple seconds. Make sure you aggressively chase them down so this doesn’t happen.
Not playing to your character’s strengths
This is another one that seems obvious, but is definitely one that veteran Soulsborne players should keep in mind nevertheless. Compared to your average Elden Ring Tarnished, most of Elden Ring Nightreign’s classes have some unique quirks and specializations that you need to take into account and play into while battle bosses and roaming around Limveld.
The Guardian, for example, has a special reinforced guard that gives his greatshield enough stability to ward off even the heaviest-hitting boss attacks, but the tradeoff is that he has a worse dodge than other characters that gives him less invincibility frames. Therefore, while every Soulsborne instinct in your body may tell you to dodge a big move, you’ll actually be far better off blocking it if you’re using him.
Another good example is the Executor, who thrives off of deflecting attacks to quickly stagger his adversaries. Again, your initial reaction to most incoming damage will likely be to roll through it, you should actually try and deflect it in many cases.
It took me a while to retrain my brain a bit with Nightfarers like these, and as a result, I found them frustrating and awkward to play for a while. Once I got used to playing into their special capabilities, however, I began to see much more success.
Being too reserved with your Ultimate Art
Finally, my closing recommendation for Nightreign players is to get comfortable with using your Ultimate Art ability often. Due to how impactful they can be, it’s natural to try and hold them for an extended period of time as you wait for “the perfect moment.” And in fairness, there is value to doing this with some of them; Guardian’s Wings of Salvation and Revenant’s Immortal March, for example, are arguably worth saving until you need them because they have the extremely valuable ability to revive downed allies guaranteed.
But with most of them, you’ll actually be far better off using them soon after charging them, which is something it took me quite a while to realize. Ultimate Arts charge passively over time and also when you do damage, so as long as you’re consistently landing hits in the fray, they’ll come back faster than you might think. Therefore, you should generally use them more freely so that you’re contributing as much HP and stamina damage to boss encounters as possible.
Elden Ring Nightreign is a bold new experimental spinoff from FromSoftware that spices up the original game’s Soulsborne combat with a roguelike, co-op driven twist. Though it has sizable issues like only having one map or underwhelming enemy variety, it’s nevertheless going to be one of this year’s best Xbox games and best PC games for Souls fans craving action. It’s $39.99, but you can get it for $33.99 at Newegg with the promo code XVSAVE.
